Tabletop Terrain

Review: Black Scorpion Tombstone Miniatures

Stu — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 23:54:34 +0000

A gaming friend of mine recently picked up a copy of Warhammer Historical: Legends of the Old West, which is a Wild West skirmish wargame. Reading the rules it’s sort of a franken-game, combining the best features of Mordheim, Necromunda and the GW Lord of the Rings systems. Unfortunately it still retains the awful ‘I go, you go’ scheme that GW games can’t seem to escape from, but fortunately it has staggered rounds which offsets that somewhat.

As I’ve often admired Black Scorpion’s range of Tombstone range figures, I thought this would be an ideal time to pick some up. However I didn’t just want cowboys, but rather some figures that might mix into my Pulp collection as well. Black Scorpion have two groups of female figures that seemed like a good compromise, Tombstone 5 and Tombstone 6, most of which would work in a Pulp setting too. I ordered them from the Black Scorpion site a couple of weeks ago and they’ve just arrived, so here’s a quick review and comparison against a couple of other independent figure manufacturers.

Casting

On unpacking it’s clear the figures are well cast. There’s almost no flash (one figure of ten had some flash under an arm), and only visible mold lines on a couple of figures that had to be filed down. The mold lines are also well placed, with no lines crossing faces or other important details. One minor annoyance is the fact that I had to straighten the barrels on every figure holding a gun out of the box. I suspect this is because rough handling by international post, as the figures have travelled from the UK to New Zealand. As you can see from the photo the figures use a slotta base system and have molded on tabs. I’ll probably be cutting a few of these off so I can base some figures on wooden planks.

Sculpting

The figures are well sculpted with a nice variety of clothing and hair styles. For female 28mm figures they have fairly realistic proportions with only a single figure displaying an enormous chest and cleavage – I guess there had to be one! They’re generally statically posed, with only four of the ten figures actively aiming or drawing their weapons, but it’s a nice mix of poses I think. The static figures are presenting their arms in a gun-safe but threatening manner.

They also have a nice mix of firearms, with two shotguns (either of which could be filed down to make them sawn-off), two recognisable Winchester repeaters, four armed with a variety of single and dual revolvers and two unarmed ’showgirl’ figures (maybe they have derringers). This mix of weapons makes them ideal for putting together a couple of Legends of the Old West posses.

In terms of detail the figures are passable. Period costume of the Old West was pretty simple and this is reflected on the miniatures, with decoration consisting of tassled fringes and the odd bow. In terms of detail I’d say the Black Scorpion figures are comparable to the Copplestone Casting ranges, but not as detailed or crisp as the Artizan Designs collection.

The wide mix of clothing, hats and hairstyles will keep the figures interesting to paint though. I particularly like the figure that looks like a gentle homemaker, in a full dress and leg’o'mutton jacket, clutching a sun umbrella in one hand and a Winchester repeating rifle in the other…!

Scale

Miniatures Comparison" hspace=5 border=0 align="right"/> Black Scorpion state their figures are ‘32mm’ scale, which equates to the so called ‘Heroic 28mm’ that Games Workshop use. Here’s a photo comparing several of the Black Scorpion figures to an WWII Artizan Designs 28mm German and a Copplestone Castings female archaeologist. I’ve chosen the tallest of the Black Scorpion ladies for comparison and as you can see there is a noticeable scale difference. However as it’s not often you see figures lined up like this on the tabletop I can’t see any problem mixing and matching these slightly larger figures with the rest of my Pulp collection.

Cost

At GBP7.50 for each group of five figures, plus 15% for shipping internationally they’re a pretty good deal and I’m perfectly happy to recommend them to anybody after some 28-32mm Western miniatures. I ordered directly off their site and had no problem getting the items shipped international air to a New Zealand PO Box.

Black Scorpion also have several other interesting looking ranges, in particular their Pirates, Fantasy Pirates and Iraqii Militia all look good to me.

Space Hulk: Dipped Genestealers Group

Stu — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 00:06:43 +0000

Here’s the first seven Space Hulk Genestealers I’ve dip painted. That leaves me with 16 left, all of which are repeated figures except for the big nasty Brood Lord. The figures are nicely sculpted for a GW boxed board game. I particularly like the floor bursters, because they’re a little unusual and also easy to paint, as you only have to deal with half the figure.

One mildly annoying aspect to them though, both for gaming and painting, is that none of them are on a standard base. They have a mix of wierd and wonderful bases, the most problematic being the fellow standing on half a Terminator. He’s hard to paint because there’s really no where you can get a decent grip on that base with a tool so you can dip the figure and I’ve resorted to hand painting dip onto that particular figure. The odd basing is also a problem from a gaming point of view because some of those larger figures can be hard to stuff onto a board laden with Genestealers.

Look carefully at some of the figures and you’ll see some dip runs, particularly around the knees and feet of the Genestealers and some of the 45 degree slopes on the metallic bases. The perfectionist in me is mildly annoyed I’ve let that happen, but the pragmatist in me can live with it. The green dip gives the figures a nice ’slimy’ sort of feel, and the odd run sort of enhances that somewhat. Plus heck, I’m speed painting so you’re going to see the odd run here and there. Once the figures are in play on the table I doubt you’ll even notice them.

I showed Griff what I’d painted last night while he was GMing a game of Dark Heresy and he seemed generally appreciative which is encouraging (hi Griff). I think a Space Hulk board full of these green Genestealers will look pleasing to the eye.

If I make some effort I think I can probably do another 7-8 Genestealers this week and still have time to play a few Xbox games. I guess at some stage I should also start to think about how I’m going to paint the 11 Blood Angels Space Marine Terminators in the box. These figures are considerably more detailed than the Genestealers and while I still plan to dip paint them (with the same chestnut dip I used on my Warhammer Orcs) it’s going to take a bit longer to base coat each figure to the dipping stage.

Space Hulk: Dipping Genestealers

Stu — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 06:54:12 +0000

A friend of mine bought the Space Hulk re-release last year and I volunteered to assemble and paint the figures. Assembling them took me about a week and a half, but they’ve been sitting in my garage since October last year waiting for paint.

I’ve finally stopped playing XBox 360 games long enough to experiment with a few paint schemes and come up with one I think I can use to speed dip the whole set of twenty three Space Hulk Genestealers in the box. This scheme is designed for use with a slightly darker version of my earlier homemade green Zombie dip.

Why green dip them? Well, I plan to brown dip the Blood Angels Space Marines and thought if the Genestealers were also brown dipped all the figures would look quite similar in tone on the game board. Green dipped Genestealers should contrast nicely with the red/brown Blood Angel Terminators during play. I’m also not really a fan of the default purple/blue scheme Genestealers are portrayed in.

The Genestealers were washed and then primed with GW Skull White spray which covered their purple plastic surprisingly well. The skin was painted with Rotting Flesh, while the armor, claws and teeth are Scaly Green (which I’ve since discovered is since out of production – oops). The base was painted in a couple of metallic tones – Chainmail and Gold. The whole figure was then dipped in the custom mix, flicked off and left to dry. Once completely dry a decent matt spray varnish was dusted over the figure and the teeth, tongue and claws were retouched with a gloss varnish, although that’s a little hard to see in the photos.

Overall I’m pretty happy with this first experimental Genestealer and think a Space Hulk board covered in the little buggers should look quite good. The green dip textures the lighter and darker parts of the figure nicely with zero effort and I particularly like the way it’s fallen into the ‘venting’ on the arms and legs. Now I have to crack on and finish painting the first clutch of five Genestealers, which I’ll post next week so stay tuned. Happy New Year too btw!

Space Hulk

Space Hulk and Another Hobby

Stu — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 23:05:14 +0000

Yes, it’s gone quiet here on the modelling front again. If you’re wondering why it’s because of several things.

First I’ve started a new hobby and blog: physical computing with an Arduino board, which has been stealing some time from modelling.

Secondly, it’s because I’ve got a bunch of projects on the go at the moment, but haven’t made enough progress really to warrant a blog post. I’m still painting Orcs and Zombies using dipping and since we’ve been playing a bit of Mordheim recently I’ve started planning a new, small terrain piece for that – which I intend to turn into a tutorial about building Mordheim ruins.

Finally, the recent arrival of the latest addition of Space Hulk has also been taking up some of my time. Alas I didn’t pick up a copy ($185 locally in New Zealand is a bit rich for me), however my mad friend Griff did and somehow I’ve managed to rope myself into assembling and painting all of the figures in the box for him…? Most likely I’ll be painting with some very quick dipping. Honestly I should have kept my mouth shut, but I think Dustan’s excellent conversions of his own Space Hulk figures must have inspired me or something? Anyway this project is sure to feature in the near future – once I figure out a decent colour scheme for dipping Genestealers!

Primer Madness – Orc Edition

Stu — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 00:57:53 +0000

I haven’t posted for a while because pretty much all I’ve been doing is assembling Orcs and Goblins, basing them and priming them. So here they are:

- The Orc General on foot, assembled from the $40nz Orc Warboss plastic boxed set. To be honest I found this set to be a disappointment. The parts aren’t that interesting, nor that well sculpted. The giant boar in particular was very bland and lacked the surface detail I’d expect. Guess I should have gone with a metal figure for the General. His base is detailed with some spare Zombie heads.

- 24 multi-part Orc Warriors with spears and shields, assembled from a Regiment box mixed with spares I had from other sets. You can probably spot a few Chariot Orc heads in there and a chariot shield, and the Hero is armed with the spare great weapon I had from the Warboss – I’ll just call that a large spear. I’ve got six more to put together to finish the 30 Orc unit.

- 20 of the newer vanilla Night Goblins which are -tiny- compared to their older figures and are another disappointing new plastic set. They’re so small compared to the older Goblins they look like a regiment of Gobbo kids out for a playful afternoon of stabbing small woodland creatures with their sharp sticks.

- Behind the Gobbos there are 15 Zombies. These guys have been assembled for something like four years now, so I dusted them off and finally primed them.

- Finally at the back there’s half of the 10 Orc Archers I’ve assembled, the other five are being painted. I’ve got another 10 to assemble for two small units of Orc Arrer Boyz.

I probably shouldn’t have assembled and primed all this lot at once, because looking at them ranked up like this is kind of daunting to a part time gamer like myself. Even painting them using dipping techniques will be a reasonable amount of work.

I’ve also spent a fair amount of time patching my Games Workshop plastic Giant. It’s a nice figure, but it’s got a heck of a lot of large seams to patch because of it’s huge, hollow multi-part assembly. As I’ve also elected to put together all his weapon options I’ve got to patch them too, since many of them also have very prominent seams. Patching is tedious work, but it’s worth it in the end when you’ve got no obvious seams on the painted figure.

Plasticard Movement Trays – Warhammer

Stu — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 01:04:52 +0000

I’m still assembling and painting Orcs, and have enough of them now that I’m sick of shuffling them around a game table manually. Instead of buying a set of GW movement trays and cutting them to size for the larger bases that Orcs use, I dusted off some old Evergreen plasticard sheet I’ve had laying around in the garage. I originally bought it for basing DBA units, which doesn’t take a heck of a lot of plasticard since they’re 15mm troops.

The base of the tray is 2mm white plasticard cut to hold a 6 x 5 ranking of Orcs. The tray edging is 1mm plasticard cut into a 1mm long strip and super-glued in place. Thin styrene cut into narrow strips like this tends to curl a reasonable amount so be prepared to carefully bend it back into a straight line. Look at the larger photo and you may notice some slight wavering along the edges because frankly I wasn’t that careful. A single sheet of styrene built two 6 x 5 Orc sized movement trays, with enough left over to make a small cavalry movement tray for 6 x Goblin Dire Wolf riders.

I’ll wash the trays in dish-washing detergent to clean them, then prime them with a cheap black spray can and matt varnish them lightly to get a nice flat black that will blend into the Orc bases. After all on the game table, nobody will be paying any attention to your movement trays.

The photo also shows I’m about 40% of the way through assembling the second unit of Orc spear + shield warriors. Multi-part regiment boxes take a lot longer to assemble than two part Battalion boxes – that’s for sure.

Magnetised Giant – Warhammer

Stu — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 08:12:44 +0000

I’ve been assembling the Games Workshop plastic Giant I purchased recently and while admiring all the head and weapon options you have in the box I thought why should I have to pick just one? Fortunately I still have around 80 rare earth magnets left from my purchase from Aussie Magnets several years ago.

So I busted out my 1mm, 2mm and 3mm drill bits and started to drill a bunch of holes in the giant. As the figure is well, giant in 28mm scale, there was ample room to sink 3mm diameter by 2mm deep magnets into the limbs and hand choices. The first shot shows how I’ve placed the magnets on the main figure, after that it was just a matter of drilling out each and every hand and weapon option I wanted to use – which turned out to be all of them of course.

To place the magnets appropriately I used my own Blu Tack pinning method. Also If you’re wondering why I’m using three drill bits when one would suffice, it’s because I find sinking a guide hole and then drilling that out slowly to the right size gives you much more control than just slapping the 3mm bit against the plastic and hoping for the best. Control is particularly important when you’re drilling narrow pieces, or potentially drilling close to the surface of the sculpted plastic.

The hands turned out so well I magnetised the heads too. This required some careful drilling as the magnets were placed in the top of the skull as it’s the widest point of contact on the figure’s neck. The plastic does get thin up there though and I ended up leaving the magnets protruding about 0.5 mm out of the skull interior, rather than risk through drilling, resulting in tedious patching work. You can clearly see this in the photo. I drilled out all of the heads except the Chaos one, because frankly I think the horns look a little dopey – and I don’t play a Chaos force anyway.

Once the drilling and gluing was finished, I spent an amusing half an hour with my six year old son in the garage trying head and arm swaps. He liked the way you could pop the ‘enslaved giant’ collar on with the millstone, and then snap a number of different heads on over it, and also the way you could attach hands and then swivel them into different poses.

The rare earth magnets are easily strong enough to hold the head and smaller ‘free’ hands on during play. The weapon hands all stay in place fairly robustly except the large Orcish ‘dragon’s head’ club (see photo) which is really just too top heavy. It doesn’t detach from the figure, but will swivel downwards pretty easily. During play I suspect a little blu tack in the join will help stop that.

Now I just have to patch, prime and paint the beastie!

Heat Forming Plastic Night Goblins – Warhammer

Stu — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:44:43 +0000

I haven’t posted for a while, because I’ve been slowly assembling the various bits and pieces from my Imperial Games Warhammer order, and while I enjoy making GW plastic figures, it doesn’t make for very interesting blogging. To date I’ve built most of a Warhammer Giant, a box of 20 Night Goblins, three Fanatics, an Orc Boss and around 20 Orc Arrer boyz (from my original battalion boxes). I’ve also cleaned up and reprimed a bunch of stuff too – 20 Zombies are ready for painting, which would take the me up to 40 in total. I’ve also got the final five Orc Boyz primed too which would take my first Orc unit to 30, and I’m half way through painting the second Boar Chariot.

Anyway, while assembling the plastic Goblin Fanatics I was disappointed by the bland look of the straight chains their balls of whirling death are on. It doesn’t really match the fluff, so I thought I’d try heat bending the thermoplastic GW figures are molded from. Searching on the internet it seems people use all sorts of methods to reshape GW plastics. I didn’t fancy hair driers, heat guns or open flames so resorted to boiling water. Bringing a pot to the boil on the stove I held the Fanatics in for a minute using cooking chopsticks. The plastic chains became easily bendable so I put gentle curves into all of them, although I wonder if I shouldn’t have gone more extreme and tried for a spiral or u-bend?

It was so easy I wonder why I haven’t tried this years ago with other GW plastics. I discovered something else too – GW black plastic bases are made of an awful cheap and crappy thermoplastic. I made the mistake of leaving the round bases on the Fanatics while I was boiling them and the bases shrunk and warped considerably in the process. Oh well, I’ve got plenty of square bases to spare so just replaced them, since basing makes no difference as they move randomly with scatter dice.

Dipped Zombie Unit – Warhammer

Stu — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 09:38:21 +0000

I’ve dipped another ten Zombies since I mixed my own green dip and I’ve added in the five Zombies I painted slowly years ago to create this small unit. Can you spot the hand painted vs the dipped Zombies? It’s not that hard to do, but I’m happy to see they blend in nicely with the newer dipped figures, which really goes to show the strength of the dipping technique. Individually the figures aren’t that great, but overall the unit looks quite nicely foetid which is exactly the effect I was hoping green dip would have.

The custom movement tray is just a standard GW movement try that’s had some resin cast details from a Hirst Arts mold pinned to it and painted. It looks quite nice but frankly can be a bit of a hassle to place figures into as they tend to snag on the details. Looking at it again, I wonder if I shouldn’t brush a little dip on that bronze as well.

I’ve got a bunch more Zombies taking a stripping bath at the moment to remove some incomplete paint jobs, and I’ve got another handful to patch up and prime. In fact I’m considering salvaging my original Vampire Counts Border Patrol Force from 2004 and getting them finally finished using dip. To complete them wouldn’t take much effort once the Zombies are done. From memory I think I had a handful of metal Grave Guard to finish as well, and they can certainly go through the green dip. In fact I might try a little highlighting over the base coat prior to dipping, rather than the simple flat base colours I’ve been doing so far.

For reference here’s close-ups of the two extra ranks of five Zombies I’ve painted. You can see I’ve been experimenting with a variety of skin tones, from a lighter green to a lighter turqouise to a slightly over the top dark turqouise tone. Dip gives your figures quite a natural range of tones even if you base them with the same colour (thinned GW Camo Green in this case) but I thought I’d mix it up a little and see how it works. The blue skin tones came out fairly well, giving the figures a drowned or maybe frostbitten appearance. I wanted to experiment with some purple skin tones as well, but couldn’t find any purple paint in my collection – and frankly couldn’t be bothered mixing a custom tone for a couple of figures. Ah well, maybe a few in the next batch!

More Orcs from Imperial Games – Warhammer

Stu — Sun, 31 May 2009 01:15:17 +0000

Now I’ve painted my Orc Border Patrol force, I’m looking to expand it to a full Orc and Goblin army. I was steeling myself to pay full retail prices, until Daniel pointed out Imperial Games sell Games Workshop below retail in New Zealand. To my knowledge that makes them the only discount Games Workshop retailer in New Zealand. They carry the entire Games Workshop range, not to mention several other superb independent companies like Pig Iron, CNC Workshop and Ziterdes (excellent for terrain) and if you order more than $75nz worth of goods they’ll ship for free within the country. I had a few questions about my order so emailed them and was pleasantly surprised to find Imperial Games are also run by professional and responsive folks, which is exactly what you want from an online retailer.

I’ve ordered the following from them to bulk out my Orc’n'Gobbo force. I’ve put the GW NZ retail price in italics for comparsion:

$49.50 ($55) Night Goblins Regiment
$22.50 ($25) Night Goblin Fanatic Box
$49.50 ($55) Orc Warriors Regiment
$36.00 ($40) Orc Warboss
$67.50 ($75) Warhammer Giant
$225.00 ($250) Total

That’s a 10% discount on GW retail and free shipping. I’ll be using Imperial Games from now on for most of my hobby purchases, particuarly since they carry several other lines I’ve mentioned in the past and the Ziterdes range includes lots of useful terrain.

I also have no problem recommending them to any gamer based in New Zealand. It’s fantastic to finally have a professional, discount Games Workshop web-store based here in New Zealand.

Dipped Zombies – Warhammer

Stu — Thu, 21 May 2009 08:53:28 +0000

As dipping Orcs in off the shelf pre-stained wood varnish worked so well I thought I’d try some different coloured dip. Unfortunately Wattyl don’t make a green all-in-one varnish product so following Dustan’s advice again, I mixed my own. I picked up some Tamiya X-25 ‘Clear Green’ enamel paint from a local hobby store, a pot of clear satin floor varnish from the hardware store and combined them with a little ‘ebony’ oil based stain in an old, clean mint-jelly jar (which seemed appropriate). The dip was made by pouring two thirds of the Tamiya X-25 in and then slowly adding the satin floor varnish until I had a tone I was happy with, then I darkened the dip down by slowly adding small amounts of the ebony wood stain. Essentially I was trying to match the depth of colour of the wood stain product I used on the Orcs.

I dusted off some of the fifty assembled but unpainted Zombies I made for my Vampire Counts force, base coated them and dipped them into the new, minty green dip. Here’s the first four, matt varnished and ready to shamble. I’m not entirely satisfied with the results though, they’re passable for a gaming paint job but I think they’re not as successful as the dipped Orcs.

The green dip works well over the Games Workshop Camo Green that was used as the basic flesh tone, but don’t think it works that well over the brown tones on the figures. This is unfortunate because it’s earthy tones I typically paint with, which is obviously if you look at the Orcs I’ve been dipping, or any of my Pulp figures from the past. Ah well, perhaps it’s time to expand my repertoire and the green dip certainly works over whites like Skull White primer, off-whites like Bleached Bone, Rotting Flesh and yellows and yellow-browns like Khommando Khaki and Bubonic Brown. I’m also very happy with the way it’s worked on the Boltgun Metal chest plate and suspect it’ll go quite nicely over Shining Gold as well.

So I think I’ll forge ahead regardless of my reservations. I’ve tidied up half of my 50 Zombies ready for base coating and dipping so I might as well keep painting. It’s been suggested that I try varying the skin tone a little and I do wonder how the green dip would go over light blue or even purple tinged flesh. I suspect you could probably end up with some quite delightfully fetid looking Zombies… (cue rolling thunder, lightning flash).

Dipped Orc Border Patrol Complete – Warhammer

Stu — Wed, 13 May 2009 05:15:57 +0000

Last weekend I finished the last five Goblin Wolf Riders to complete my Orc Border Patrol force. Each figure in this force has been painted the same way – primed white, base coated with flat colours and then dipped in an all-in-one varnish and stain product. I think they turned out quite nicely, and that’s certainly the fastest I’ve managed to painted this many figures. I started dipping them at the end of March, so they’ve taken me about six weeks in total. I found at most I could finish around five man sized figures every two evenings of painting. At that rate I could paint a 1500pt Warhammer Orc army in less than a year.

Once again I have to thank Dustan for his invaluable tips regarding dipping, without them I wouldn’t have bothered trying dip. Experiments with dip continue in both our houses – I’m looking to mix a good green dip for Warhammer Zombies and 40k Plague Marines while he’s trying for a blue dip for 40k Eldar.

Here’s a close up of the last five Goblin Wolf Riders. I wasn’t quite so heavy handed with the matt varnish this time and their paint jobs look a little crisper on the table. Since this is a Border Patrol force, both Wolf Rider units lack Standards and Musicians. There’s little point giving these speed bump units Standards of course, but their poor Leadership would certainly benefit from Musicians, which may get added in the future.

Next I’ll look at expanding this force with the existing figures I already have – another Boar Chariot, 30 Orc Arrer boys (I’ll probably paint 20), about another 10 Orc boys in parts and then it’s time to spend some money! It’s been years since I’ve been into a Games Workshop store, and I’ll probably end up buying additional Regiment boxes from Vagabond in Auckland city.

Dustan’s Homemade Paint Station

dustan — Wed, 06 May 2009 22:05:25 +0000

Dustan recently posted in our forum about his homemade paint station and I’ve edited his posts into this blog entry. There are more photos and details of construction in the forum posts if you’re interested – Stu.

I decided to revamp my tired old painting table with a stepped shelf system designed for more comfortable painting and protection from my daughter Pagyn (almost 2 at the time of writing). I wasn’t alone on the mission as my boy Shaun lent a hand and was a wonderful help to keep things flush while I screwed them.

The materials were all scavenged from about the garage. I had a 1200×600mm sheet of 4.5mm MDF, the chipboard was about 200mm x 595mm at 20mm depth. The screws were the only part I needed to buy, about 85 screws all up at $0.10 a piece. The tools used were a jigsaw, skill saw, coping saw, a couple of clamps and a drill.

The table has been kicking arround with me for the longest time, it is an old TV table and I have been using it as a paint station for years. It’s a good size for hiding between furniture when not in use and the lower part of the table is where my current models, bitz and tools are stored.

I sketched up a diagram of roughly what I wanted it to look like, then after cutting the back and sides I drew the plans straight onto them. This first shot shows the table with the back and splash shields in place. I didn’t have any hole cutting drill bits so I used a coping saw to make the water jar hole. The cuts were made by clamping a guide rail onto the material to cut. The shelves are made from a system of screwed together steps with MDF tops and chipboard walls.

Here’s a shot of the fully stocked table so far. I am also over half way through building a breadbox style lid, made from old ventian blind slats, which will slide into the void above the top shelf.

So far construction has taken about six hours, and the design and measurements where largely made up on the fly. Painting at the table is nice as everything is available and arranged tidily, and the high sides limit Pagyn’s angles of attack which has made it much easier to get things done.

Very nice work Dustan. I admire both your scavenging and DIY abilities, and I particularly like the inclusion of a large storage area underneath the work surface. I’m also slightly jealous of your collection of GW paints. Most of mine have been used, or dried up and I’m left with the horrifying prospect of purchasing some more, at $7NZ locally for a single bottle! – Stu.

Dipped Goblin Wolf Riders – Warhammer

Stu — Sat, 02 May 2009 00:56:05 +0000

As I mentioned in the last post, Goblin Wolf Riders were the next into the dipping tin. Here’s the first small ’speed bump’ unit of five Wolf Riders for my Border Patrol force.

The wolves were based, primed white and then quickly painted with a watered down Scorched Brown. Their ears, snouts and tongues were all lightened with a mix of Scorched Brown and Dwarf Flesh. The teeth were just left as white primer. The base and wolf was then dipped into an even darker mix of the already darkened Wattyl stain + varnish product I’m using. Painting the wolves with dip was so easy I painted ten of them to completion in two evenings. This means I’ve got five Goblins left to paint to complete the second small unit.

The Goblins themselves were just primed white, painted in base colours and then dipped into the same mix as the Orcs. They didn’t turn out quite as well as the Orcs in my opinion. I suspect it’s something to do with the figures being simpler, and much less textured that the larger plastic warriors. But once again the speed of getting them painted outweighs the slight loss of quality from dipping. I also went a little overboard on the varnish for these figures and they’re extremely matt, and the spray varnish is thick enough to obscure detail in places. I must remember a light dusting is all that’s required.

Once I’ve finished the five remaining riders I will have completed my 500pt Border Patrol force. Then I’ll look at pushing the Orc unit out to 30 figures, and assembling the second Orc Boar chariot I have. I also have 30 Orc Arrer Boyz that I may or may not use. Orc archers are pretty worthless in my limited experience so if I’m going to use these figures I’ll probably try some conversions – Aaron made the excellent suggestion of replacing their bows with spears for example.

To get the force to 1500 points I’m considering purchasing a Games Workshop Giant, a couple of regiment boxes (Night Goblins and Orc Warriors) and a box of Fanatics. To save some money I may also try scratch building a couple of Goblin Spear Chuckas from balsa and plasticard.

Dipped Orc Chariot – Warhammer

Stu — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 05:57:10 +0000

I completed this Orc Boar Chariot over the week, painting and dipping the boars, riders and several parts of the chariot separately before putting it all together. This turned out to be something of a mistake because evidently you’re supposed to build the boars into the chariot before painting. Ah well, a sharp xacto blade and a little minor surgery on the chariot body got the boars into their harnesses with no obvious damage.

I have to say I’m pretty pleased with the end result. In particular the wood effect is superb considering it’s just a coat of dip over a Graveyard Earth base. I used to get much the same effect by messing around with several layers of drybrushing and an ink wash. The boars also turned out well I think, considering they’re painted with only three colours prior to dipping.

The next task is to find a reasonable way to dip Goblin Wolf Riders. The challenge is I’d like the wolves to be quite a dark tone. I’m considering mixing a small amount of darker dip and using a lightened base coat of Scorched Brown. Even though I bought the smallest tin of stain available, and I’ve dipped 20 Orcs and this chariot I still have plenty left in the tin, so dipping is not only easy it’s also economical. The wolf riders will get the same treatment as the Orcs and once I’ve painted ten wolf riders I will have completed a 500pt Border Patrol force.